So the previous owner of my 63 Ford Fairlane was pulling trees out with this car and ultimately grenaded the rear end. Replacing it with an 87 Ford Ranger rear that I pulled from Pick-Your-Part as it matched for width (50" from backing plate to backing plate), was leaf spring suspended with mounts being in the same spot, and also had the same lug pattern. Problem being that truck rear mounts under spring and car mounts over, causing me to flip the rear, common sense tells me that is fine, am I crazy? Also the car center section is centered, while truck rear is 2" off of center. I know I will have to have a new driveline made up, but I'm wondering who else has had this issue and what did you do?
Do you mean you just turned the rearend upside down and bolted it in? If so you'll be in for a treat on the first test drive. You'll have multiple reverse gears and one very low forward gear.
Ummm, yeah. My bad. I got so excited about the leaf spring mounts lining up that I hadn't spent two seconds and thought about that. Stupid.
The offset in the drfiveline is no problem,.........many vehicles are like that......it's no different then when the rear yoke and transmission are above or below each other...that's what u-joints do. The only driveshaft issue is correct u-joints and length. You can buy new spring pads cheap and place them on the new axle housing in the necessary location and weld them on. Ray
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